Brian Taylor of BBC Scotland said last night he picked up at Holyrood that the other unionist parties were pleased that UKIP had won the former Lib Dem seat in Scotland and stopped the SNP getting a third. That was the most revealing moment of last night for me – it showed the vicious irresponsibility of the Better Together campaign, and exposed the lie that UKIP are outsiders.
The other moment worth watching was Alex Salmond confronting Dimbleby that the BBC had given UKIP four times as much coverage time in Scotland during the campaign as the SNP. Dimbleby tamely responded that his complaint should be directed to BBC Scotland. The BBC’s promotion of UKIP again explodes the myth of UKIP as outsiders.
The Unionist camp’s pathetic attempt to claim that UKIP’s 10% and fourth place in Scotland, squeaking one seat, shows Scotland is the same politically as England where UKIP got 29% and came first, is desperate politics. That in order to make that point they were happy for a racist party to marginally represent Scotland in Europe, is a sign of the total moral bankruptcy of the Better Together neo-con British Nationalist programme.
New Labour are completely screwed. To only beat the Tories by 1%, when there is a huge UKIP voteof which a significant slice will go back to the Tories, shows there is no chance whatsoever that New Labour will win the UK general election.
The people of Scotland have a very simple choice in September. Independence, or another Tory government which will probably pull the UK out of the EU, and might very well be in coalition with UKIP.
New Labour won almost nowhere except London. It is the party of London., with a leader who has never in his life lived outside London. But it is a fascinating fact that of all the class, educational, geographical and other statistics you can correlate with New Labour success, the factor with the strongest correlation of all with the New Labour share of the vote is the prevalence of postal voting. New Labour can win only where the system is open widest to abuse through massive scale electoral fraud.
Some of this is straight fraud – postal ballots being given to ghost voters, non-existent people on the register. That is very much more prevalent than you probably imagine. But mostly it operates through the deprivation of the privacy of the polling booth. In a polling station nobody is supposed to be allowed to look over your shoulder (although there were disgraceful scenes in places in Tower Hamlets, Wood Green and Newham). But if you receive your ballot paper in your home, you are extremely vulnerable if you live in a situation where others are able to enter your home and demand to check that you have voted the right way before you post your ballot. That is beyond doubt the situation both of many family members, particularly affecting women, and of certain highly hierarchical and patriarchal communities. Postal ballot distortion is an absolutely disgraceful blot on British political culture. It is also fundamental to New Labour’s ability to salvage something from a disastrous electoral performance.
There is indeed a very nasty undercurrent of racism in England at the moment. I live in one of UKIP’s strongest areas and this racism cannot be wished away. In fact I do not believe that Farage is personally racist, and I believe he is genuine not tactical in his abhorrence of the French National Front. But I do believe Farage has pandered to and encouraged people who are racists, and that there are a great many racists within UKIP. These people must not be allowed to become a ‘respectable’ part of politics and must be confronted wherever they appear.
I have argued for years that the UK is not a democracy in that no real choice is offered between the main political parties. Their policies are all the same. If the range of possible policies on any one issue were enumerated from 1 to 100, New Labour, Lib Dem and Tories offer you choices in the range 81 to 86. The electorate has noticed, and people are sick of it. People have noticed all over Europe too. The politics of neo-con consensus and its lackey media is happily dead. This is a change that will not stop. Once we imprison enough neo-cons who ripped off the public and the taxpayer, perhaps they might concede that it turns out history had not ended after all.
It is true that UKIP’s support does represent an upsurge of dissatisfaction with the political elite, and that also is part of an unarticulated rage at the astonishing growth of inequality of wealth in society and the vast shift of resources to the billionaire middlemen in the financial sector who do extremely little for it. It is good that rage is building, and Syriza show in Greece that it can be constructively channelled. But it is much more often and with much more success diverted in order to awake volcanoes of atavism, and rage that should be directed at plutocrats is instead turned on foreigners. The danger is letting that analysis divert you from the fact of how very, very real and very, very nasty that atavism is in the dispossessed classes. We are in a dangerous place. The neo-con establishment is fanning racist flames.
At school, we were taught about the years of revolution in Europe of 1830-32 and 1848-9. Those revolutionary years coincided with Asian Cholera pandemics, which undoubtedly played a part in driving people beyond endurance. You can of course argue that poverty and famine assisted the spread of the pandemics.
This current year of European change has also been sparked by economic distress, and seen an increase in poverty marker diseases, some of which we had hoped had effectively vanished. But plague has been a cause. Europe has suffered the most devastating plague of bankers in history.
The disillusioned should not blame immigrants. Immigrants are victims too. Turn your wrath on the bankers, the billionaires and the neo-con parties who do their bidding. Another world is possible.
Let’s start by ending the UK and setting Scotland free. It is not illegitimate to judge an idea in part by the quality and motives of those who oppose it. The full range of the neo-con establishment prefer racist isolation for a neo-con UK to a free Scotland. Just look at them. Then kick them where it really hurts.
We are not supposed to have a class system now. We are ALL in it together. Remember or were you somewhere else at the time when Agent Cameon was sounding off? Anyway, it proves what phonies Gideon and his crowd are.
http://www.newstalk.ie/Growing-numbers-taking-lessons-to-sound-less-posh
btw I am not middle class. I come from working class roots of which I am very proud.
Shirley Williams has just been on Sky News defending Clegg. What a fine man. Noble too for joining in a coalition to save the country! Nothing whatsoever to do with a grab by him for power.
http://news.sky.com/story/1269595/nick-clegg-it-has-been-a-massive-set-back
PS I cannot prevent the troll including slurs against me or mentions of me in his comments.
Mary
“btw I am not middle class. I come from working class roots of which I am very proud.”
___________________
Evasive. Your roots may well be working class (and there is no reason for you not to be proud of them), but you are – in the here and now – firmly middle class.
Or do you wish to deny that?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On George Osborne’s accent: can you assure me that if he were to speak only in his normal, good accent, you would not at some stage – probably sooner rather than later – use that to throw a few sneers in his direction?
**********************
Ban estuary English and low, vulgar accents.
Craig turns his back and our most pityfull cyberstalker Habby is once again acosting Mary with his spurious and shallow dalliances.
Nothing at all to say about EU values as he has no knowledge of them, just as the rest of the misguided, fed on celebrity gossip and best EU information he has nowt but bent bananas on his mind.
Craig is busy packing Nevermind. If only he could take some extra baggage with him to Spain and the baggage could then play some volleyball there to amuse himself. I think it is too wet and cold here for volleyball 😉
PS Were the BBC exaggerating about the Norwich weather today?
Hope you and yours are OK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-27585524
Nevermind
“he has nowt but bent bananas on his mind.”
_______________
And you sound as if you have a bent banana lodged firmly in your fundament
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mary
Don’t worry, I’ll soon be beach volley-ing away again (NOT volleyball, that’s for the girls!), gamboling around on the beaches, flirting with the ladies, yacking away with friends and so so. But never fear, I shall continue to keep a vigilant eye open for this blog, willing as always to praise and to censure without fear or favour and keen to follow progress.
But to business and I’ll ask you again Mary : do you consider yourself to be middle class or not?
All the indicators point in that direction, but do feel free to tell me I’m mistaken.
No Mary, it was attrocious all day with more to come tommorrow.
As the troll seems to be obsessed with ‘class’ perhaps we could be told where he sees himself fitting in.
People are people. I do not like divisiveness of any kind.
Class – a system of ordering society whereby people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status.
Mary
“As the troll seems to be obsessed with ‘class’ perhaps we could be told where he sees himself fitting in.
People are people. I do not like divisiveness of any kind.”
______________________–
But you do your best, through your posts, to foster divisiveness.
Your answer really won’t do.
When you’re not wittering on about Israel/Palestine you spend a lot of time denouncing the Royal Family, the rich, the successful as well as those who are married or even just related to any of the latter; and you spend a lot of time defending (as you see it) the oppressed workers, wage slaves and underpriviledged.
So I was merely wondering whether you were yourself one of the sufferings masses on whose behalf you so often post or whether you were a Tony Crosland or Tony Benn type of person who leads a relatively (even very) comfortable middle-class type of life while at the same time issuing a steady stream of denunciations.
No criticism intended, just asking out of interest ‘coz you’re such a frequent commenter and usually negatively.
**********************
La vita è bella, life is good!
You are very boring. I am not responding as I am sure people coming here do not wish to read such drivel nor do I wish to be involved in your attempt to dominate the thread with it.
@John: I’d almost given up on this blog in despair after reading what you were saying about Willi Wonka. I’m glad you’ve reconsidered, but I don’t think the n word is inappropriate after what has been happening in Eastern Ukraine… people now being driven out their homes, their towns, indeed out of Eastern Ukraine altogether. Guernica was a good definition of fascism, or state terrorism. Is the elimination of people in Donbass with a different view very much different?
PS Don’t bother with RT for news (although some interesting documentaries), use Twitter for what is really going on in the towns and cities of Eastern Ukraine.
The real reason behind it all? Craig might appreciate this because he seemed to be right on the money re Enron & the Taliban:
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/son-of-biden-joins-cyprus-based-corp-with-ukrainian-fracking-contract-in-crimea-and-dneper-donetsk-basin/
Another interesting and thought-provoking article:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117885/putin-abandons-panic-donetsk
Looks like Putin has chosen being part of the “New World Order”?
Peacewisher 27 May, 2014 – 9:31 pm
In a way I understand the position Putin is in. More than 90% in Eastern Ukraine are pro-Russian, but if Putin intervenes he will be accused of interfering in the affairs of another country – which as we know is the sole domain of the US. While he probably wants to intervene on behalf of the decent residents it would give the US led NATO forces an opportunity to expand their horizons.
Even understanding his dilemma if I was him I do not think I could sit back and watch good people be butchered by their own government. It will only make those in the Donetsk and the Donbass region. Some disturbing pictures here but the notices held by the children have messages like ‘Save Donbass Region’ and ‘We want to live’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It9kG1h5DZI
Mary
“You are very boring. I am not responding as I am sure people coming here do not wish to read such drivel nor do I wish to be involved in your attempt to dominate the thread with it.”
______________________
From which answer I deduce that you are comfortably-off middle class and that your concern for the downtrodden masses is of the Tony Crosland/Tony Benn kind.
Nothing wrong with that per se, so I don’t see why you’re trying so hard to keep the fact from your readers.
@John: Putin would surely have been aware of such an accusation, and how to deal with it, from the start. I get the impression that he tried to “do a deal” with the chocolate king, but Washington has intervened, taken advantage of Putin’s focusing on economic interests, and seized the initiative. They’ve figured that he won’t intervene for a “People’s Republic”, and they are probably right. I’m sure RT reporters have known that for some time, and are probably embarrassed and feel helpless. Remember Fallujah? We were told by the good old BBC to “close our eyes and be strong”, or something similar.
Maybe people are more connected now #savedonbasspeople
Habbakuk,
Mary has repeatedly made it clear she wishes no dialogue with you.
So stop pestering/stalking her.
It’s really quite sinister what you’re doing.
Her private life is not your business.
John Goss –
u r entitled to believe manmade global warming is real & requires
trading carbon dioxide emissions to fix it.
after all, Prince Charles said it’s real at the “Inclusive Capitalism” conference in London yesterday, two days before the “exclusive” Bilderberg conference gets underway in Copenhagen.
(4 pages)Retired officers poised to profit after Pentagon’s alarmist climate change report
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/26/sponsors-of-pentagons-alarm-raising-climate-study-/
to anyone who is sceptical, tho, watch your pension funds. the delegates at the “inclusive” affair control $30 trillion of assets under investment.
http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/05/27/prince-charles-capitalism-should-serve-humanitys-interests-and-concerns/
Hello Jonathan
“Habbakuk,
Mary has repeatedly made it clear she wishes no dialogue with you.
So stop pestering/stalking her.
It’s really quite sinister what you’re doing.
Her private life is not your business.”
________________________
What’s the matter with you, Jives? And why are you so fond of the word “sinister”?
Have you asked for Mary’s permission before taking the floor?
As for Mary’s “private life”, well, she’s given us far more snippets of info off her own bat than I’ve ever asked her. And anyway, I don’t think asking whether her socialism is of the Dennis Skinner sort (=working class) or the Tony Benn kind (=comfortably-off, concerned middle class) is really an intrusion into her private life.
So if you’re Mary’s Jeevsian valet, get buggered off 🙂
Labour have lost in Tower Hamlets. No overall control. The count is now being ‘probed’ by the Electoral Commission.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27585346
Electoral Commission. The place persons.
Two new commissioners ‘approved by Her Maj’ needless to say
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/journalist/electoral-commission-media-centre/news-releases-corporate/two-new-electoral-commissioners-approved
and the rest
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/who-we-are/the-commissioners
Habbabkuk,
I use the word ‘sinister’ so frequently in relation to you because,quite simply,you are sinister.
Particularly in regard to your apparent fixation with Mary.
So i dont for a moment buy your attempts at faux-mannered insights.
You are a pretentious slimy oaf.
But a dark and sinister one at that.
Now piss off troll Ok?
http://fightgangstalking.com/
“It will only make those in the Donetsk and the Donbass region.”
should have read:
“It will only make those in the Donetsk and the Donbass region more opposed to Poroshenko.”
Loving the use of the word ‘leaders’ in this.
Leaders agree to review EU agenda at Brussels summit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27599171
The ‘leaders’ are being led by Rumpy Pumpy. All hope is lost. Women and children first. Abandon ship!
I’m mildly entertained by Oddie’s faith in the Washington Times. Perhaps he’s a Moonie?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Washington_Times
Or maybe just rooting for ALEC, of which the WT is a founder member….
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations
Not corporate at all then.
Oddie, I don’t doubt for a minute that there are profiteers out of the ‘climate change’ industry. But remember for decades the US (one of the biggest polluters putting profit first) shared your belief that there was no problem. I think anybody today who does not believe that global temperatures are increasing and sea levels rising are going about with their eyes shut. I never read anything if I can avoid it about or written by the Royals. I know we are being fed false information but perhaps you can cast your mind back to winters in your childhood if you are of my generation, when Jack Frost crept up the windows creating beautiful patterns, and and boys were sliding on polished-frost slides in school playground. Those days have gone.
We cannot do much about it so in some ways your approach has a modicum of credibility. I also believe that the planet has the capability of replenishing itself, but mankind is the bacteria that is attacking it. There are feverish times ahead.
Terrible slaughter in Donbass Oblast, 100 dead, and Pravy Sector and other extreme fascists in control of military. No peaceful future. How much better it was under Yanukovich. The US has brought nothing but death to Ukraine.
http://nsnbc.me/2014/05/27/ukraines-poroshenko-promises-war-100-killed-in-kievs-new-campaign/
John Goss
The fascist thugs and desperadoes fomenting secession in eastern Ukraine would be well advised that the game is now up following the democratic election of a new state President. It is time that they realise that their attempts to set up a separate Mafia-state have failed and that they should cease inflicting further misery and suffering on their innocent fellow-citizens.
Jives (07h46)
* go and get some sleep
* go and sleep it off
(delete whichever not applicable)
I’ll excuse your vulgar, intemperate, prattish language on the grounds that you are probably tired and emotional. 🙂
Here’s one for Craig, the chocolate manufacturer who is pummeling the Donbass region, is also exploiting slave labour in West Africa for his chocolate supplies.
http://nsnbc.me/2014/05/28/poroshenko-ukraines-candy-king-sticky-fingers/